'There was nothing like it': What happened when disco touched down in Saskatoon

Saskatoon club inspires TV series WATCH: CTV Saskatoon’s Miriam Valdes-Carletti explains how ‘Fast Freddie’s” left its mark on the Prairies.

Elizabeth Smith was in her late 20s when she took a trip to New York City that would change her life and the disco scene in Saskatoon in the late 1970s.

It was at Studio 54 where she discovered disco. Instead of bringing back a traditional souvenir from her trip, she brought back the sounds and joy of the music she heard — and she wanted to share it with others

“It was amazing, I loved their music and I came home and I said to a few of my friends ‘I’d like to build one’ and they thought I was crazy,” Smith told CTV News.

Elizabeth Smith is pictured in this undated photo. (Courtesy Sydney Smith)

Fast Freddie’s came to life in 1977 at Parktown Hotel on Spadina Crescent East.

Right from the start, the club was something the Prairies had never seen before.

“It was kind of scary, we knew it would have a lot of opposition in a way but we just did our best,” said Smith, who's now 94.

The club contended with restrictive liquor laws, rules against playing recorded music and protests from church groups.

"I think they spent more time lobbying the goverment than they did actually running the disco to get the laws changed," said Smith's granddaughter Sydney.

At the time, alcohol could only be served with food and people weren’t allowed to dance while holding a drink.

“We worked at it over a few weeks and we got our way, I was very persistent and I had to go back and forth to Regina but it was worth it,” she said.

With a sound system that cost $40,000, people came from all over the province with hundreds of people showing up each night.

A Fast Freddie’s ad. (Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan)

The club even had performers come from Hollywood who brought the sound and atmosphere of disco to the Prairies.

“I was quite surprised, but they came and had a good time.”

Fast Freddie’s brought out the best in people, including their outfits.

Smith says the outfits were “breathtaking” and people were “dressed to the nines.”

Their dance moves helped their outfits shine under the disco ball that Smith worked hard to get. She recalls disco balls being “quite expensive” at the time, costing several hundred dollars each.

While the disco club was an expensive investment, Elizabeth wanted to do it right and create the same experience she had in New York City.

“The disco balls took over the whole atmosphere, you know, they were big and they were very prevalent,” she said.

Fast Freddie’s was something the Prairies had never seen before. (Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan)

The colourful club had different levels of seating such as wooden booths and handmade tiles on the counter that were “very sophisticated for the day,” something you couldn’t see anywhere else, according to Smith.

“There was nothing like it and nobody has built one since.”

As the disco era came to end, so did the club. Fast Freddie’s closed in the early 80s as the music moved towards modern rock and electronic dance music.

“Disco came alive very fast and it died very fast."

BRINGING FAST FREDDIE’S TO LIFE

Elizabeth’s granddaughter Sydney hopes to bring the memories back to life through a fictional TV series inspired by Fast Freddie’s.

Sydney grew up listening to the stories of her grandmother’s club and how it brought all types of races and genders to one place when it wasn’t the norm.

“I don’t think that people realize just how important disco was. It was a super changing time,” Sydney told CTV News.

“Disco doesn’t have a discriminatory bone in its body.”

Elizabeth Smith. (Courtesy Sydney Smith)

Sydney says the club was a safe space for everyone as it welcomed Black, Indigenous and LGBTQS+ people, interracial couples, university students and more.

Sydney grew up in Saskatoon and now lives in Los Angeles. She is a TV writer and producer and says creating this series is a “dream come true.”

“Some of the storylines we’re looking at are really just right from how wild and crazy this place was.”

Last week, the province announced new film industry funding which Sydney says couldopen the doors for the show to be shot in Saskatoon.

“When we look at this story, it’s really a story about Saskatoon and Saskatchewan … it’s such an unlikely location for something like this to exist,” she said.

The series is in the pitching process as Sydney continues to find more dancers, DJs and anyone else who may have experienced Fast Freddie’s while it was open.